Today I want to share some inspiration for our new home! Like I said in this post, our house was built in 1927 and is filled with so much character. There are built-ins in almost every room! It is a cape cod style home and is just so charming. It is also old. Like we will eventually have to replace all of the windows, old. I grew up in a house that is over 100 years old and my mom is an interior designer so watching her restore my family’s home as been so fun and I always kind of dreamt of doing the same.

Because the house is old there is no bathroom on the main floor and the kitchen is pretty small. Once we move in and figure out what we need, our plan is to knock out an exterior wall (and remove our deck) to expand the kitchen and also put in a small 1/2 bath. We want to live in it and figure out what we need before we start construction but I’m really excited to make this house shine! My goals for the kitchen are clean and simple but I love the idea of marble as the counter top and backsplash.

Our dining room is already wallpapered in a pretty blue pattern. It also has built in china cabinets on the corners of each room (love!). The wallpaper is something I want to keep but accentuate with gold details like curtain rods and a new chandelier. Nothing too gold since our wallpaper is lighter than the one above but this image is definitely serving as inspo! I also love these chairs. Right now our dining room table is a bit more casual so I plan on adding some pretty chairs and a neutral jute rug to lighten it up.

We have a formal living room with a fireplace and a casual family room on our first floor. We plan on moving our current family room furniture into the back family room that will be more like Charlie’s play room/more casual. This room has so many windows so I think it will brighten up our navy couch and leather chairs. For our formal living room I am really excited to lighten things up! I’d really love a light couch with two big comfy chairs set up facing each other with our fireplace in between. I’m starting to draw some inspiration, you can follow along with my Pinterest board here.

Like I mentioned before, we have so many built-ins in our house. One huge wall in the living room with tiny french doors leading into our family room and another wall in the family room. I have very little experience styling interiors so I am going to need all of the help I can get!

What I am most excited about it painting the exterior! The house is adorable now. It is a light blue siding with a brighter blue door and black shutters. My dream has always been to have a white siding house with black shutters and a blue door so we are close! The image above is literally my dream so I’m pretty sure that is going to have to come true. Probably with a fun light fixture over the door.

We also have a fully finished basement that needs to be decorated and a guest room, so…

Anyways, here are a few photos inspiring me! I’m also sharing some items I’m eyeing for our home in the scroller below. Have any of your bought a home and made some renovations? I’d love to hear your experience. Dave and I love Fixer Upper (I seriously think Dave and Chip are the same person) and Dave wants to do all of this himself. Ha! Wish me luck…

We took down a wall & gutted the kitchen in our current house, as we lived in it. I will be honest- it sucks to live in the house during the time. I would recommend maybe not doing it in the wintertime as we did it December- February & leaving the house or opening the window was not always an option. I felt like I was inhaling dust all the time, but we also live in a split level so our bedrooms are on the same level as the kitchen. (Our first home was a small 1930’s duplex that I loved- so wish we could’ve had an older home so can’t wait to see you post about yours!)

Other advice is to absolutely hire or have someone who is a kitchen designer on hand. We hired a friend & she would point out so many things that we would’ve not done right. Like thinking about focal points & limited the number of them once I tried to put all the things I had pinned into our design 🙂

Loving all of this!!!! We have an old home too (1929 colonial!) old homes are so charming! We have redone our kitchen and bathroom… And I would so recommend not doing any large tasks yourself! Especially in older homes where you may not know what’s inside the walls!

Our house was built in the 1920s and inside it looked like it was out of the 1970s. We redid almost every room in the house with some major (gut kitchen and bathroom) and some minor (ripping down wallpaper, ripping up rugs, ripping down wood paneling, etc). I love renovations! We’ve actually had people leave notes on our front door offering to buy our house twice even though it hasn’t been on the market.
Two tips, if you’re adding on a bathroom, you can only do it on the side of the house that already has the waste pipe or else it’s a HUGE extra expense. Also, marble looks great but it’s awful as a kitchen countertop material. It chips so easily, leaves watermarks, and stains easily with wine, tomato sauce, and anything acitic. Quartz is a much better choice and the color “aspen” looks just like marble. We have it in our kitchen with marble tile backsplash and no one can tell the difference.
I can’t wait to see your new home!

So exciting! I can’t wait to see more of your house projects. We bought a fixer-upper five years ago. Our house was built in 1940 and we basically ended up touching every single surface, knocking out major walls, and making it our own. It is hard to stay patient and sometimes the messiness/dust/imperfections will get to you, but before you know it you’ll have it transformed and it will be HOME! We have actually been looking to upgrade to a house with a bigger yard/family room, but it has been hard to find a home we love as much as the one we’ve transformed! Not at bad problem to have at the end of the day though 🙂 http://www.thefathydrangea.com

We bought an old colonial (in Naper) that had great bones but needed some updating and TLC. We are two years into it… It is a constantly evolving list. I love Fixer Upper as well – and wish it was a one-hour episode in real-life construction. Ha! We have been tackling 2 big projects per year – that seems to be manageable (life wise and on our pocket book). But we love it and you will too!

Your inspiration photos are beautiful! I’m sure it will all come together beautifully over time! We just bought our “forever home” last April and there are many things we want to renovate once we’ve spent more time in the home and see what are needs vs. desires are (mainly talking about the kitchen). We are currently redoing our 1st floor powder room ourselves. My advice? Pick & choose what you feel comfortable doing yourself. DIY is great for budget & pride but sometimes it’s best to hire out – or even hire subcontractors! I’m always trying to think of time vs. $…I know it isn’t a big deal for us to be without a powder room for a few weeks (there are 3 other bathrooms in the house), but when the kitchen remodel comes up that’s something we will hire out…its a job I’ll want done ASAP – especially when kiddos are involved!
Best of luck!!! Can’t wait to see how your new home unfolds!

Love your ideas and style! My husband and I bought a 1920s fixer upper in Seattle, and we’ve been renovating it for about 5 years. All of the major work was done before kiddos (just gave birth to #2). If you’re looking for advice, I’d say #1 is: be realistic about what you can do yourself vs what you should hire out. (Read: drywall – it looks easy, but there’s a reason it’s a trade, it’s soooo hard to get it to look right!!) And #2: it takes a long time to do any kind of renovation by yourself and you can become a slave to it especially if you have another job, which you and Dave do. Do it in phases and take lots of breaks so you can have family time and not go nuts. Congratulations and congrats on your new little one on the way!! You have a beautiful family!